The Divine Twins' War (v1.1.1; Ch31 complete)

I’m planning to make a remake of this hack! I’ve made a questionnaire about the original hack through which I’m hoping to get feedback that’ll allow me to better create this remake. If you’ve beaten the hack once before, I’d really appreciate if you fill this out!

IMPORTANT NOTE: It has come to my attention that this hack may not work well on more hardware-accurate emulators. I’ve been playtesting using VisualBoyAdvance. I cannot guarantee that things work properly on any other emulator. (It seems I’ve solved the issue that prompted this comment, but I can’t be sure other problems won’t come up in the future. If you encounter any game-breaking bugs, please let me know!)

I’ve now made a Discord channel for this hack! Come say hi, or something!

Download all patches here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12koA9vIkMTnEAMhLv9XolXiMqQspBLeb?usp=sharing
(Note: This is a hack of FE7)

Respite Chapter Guide: The Divine Twins’ War - Respite Guide

Hello! This is my first foray into the world of romhacking. I may be biting off more than I can chew here, but I’m aiming to make this hack comparable in length to a full-fledged FE game.

Basic Premise:

The country Fierte, ruled by the Holy Order of Solaris, has invaded and all but conquered the neighboring country, Gaela. A decade later, most of the country has been conquered, with only the southern and northeast tips of the country still putting up resistance. Those within the conquered areas of the massive country have been leading extremely difficult lives, thanks to the Holy Order’s tyranny. In this hack (or more specifically the now completed “Lyn Mode” of this hack) you play as Valeria, a skilled young woman who makes an enemy of the Holy Order, as she travels the conquered Gaela meeting new allies who join forces with her in the struggle to survive.

As I said earlier, I’m pretty new to this, so I don’t really know what I’m doing all that well. I’d appreciate any feedback you can take the time to give! Also, I hope you enjoy playing this hack!

New Features:

-Custom plot
-Custom characters
-Custom maps
-Customized weapons (mostly just slightly altered stats, but a few are completely custom)
-Rebalanced classes (trying to make pre-promoted classes more equal, might apply to promoted classes in the future)
-Custom classes (though very, very few)
-Some classes and/or weapons renamed
-Buffed weapon triangle (axes deal/have more mt/hit against lances while lances have less, etc)
-With how many are bound to be showing up thanks to my inexperience, can I count bugs and glitches as features?

Known Problems:

Known Problems:
-Roger’s animations might have a few miscolored pixels? I’m slightly colorblind, so I’m having trouble figuring out if that’s a real problem, or if it’s just my eyes being dumb.
-The Chapter 8 boss can be despawned by having a unit standing in a certain spot on a certain turn. Does not matter if the unit is a player or enemy.
-If a unit’s HP stat goes above 60, or any other stat goes above 30, reloading a map mid-chapter will mess up that stat, subtracting 60 (if HP) or 30 (if not) from it.

Changelog:

v.01:
-Started making the hack
-Added Prologue and Chapters 1-3
-Very minor nerf to Mercenaries
-Small buff to Fighters and Brigands
-Huge buff so Soldiers
-Created custom prf weapon: Leechedge (aka Runesword lite)
-Renamed Mercenary and Archer classes

v.02:
-Added Chapter 4 and 5
-Rebalanced all unpromoted classes,excluding lords and those rebalanced in v.01. Mostly gave only buffs, but a few nerfs were thrown on mounted classes to keep them from outshining infantry.
-Buffs to Knights and Thieves should be given special notice. Thieves’ stats and growths have been buffed to make them (theoretically) combat-viable, and Knights (and Generals) have been given the same Mov as other infantry classes.
-Renamed Monk class
-Nearly tore my hair out trying to stop an open chest from spawning when a certain door was opened in Chapter 5
-Also nearly tore my hair out trying to adjust the v.01 chapters to not be unplayable with the new class buffs.

v.03:
-Added Chapter 6, 7, and 7x
-Renamed Shaman and Druid class
-Added “Mageslayer”, an axe which deals bonus damage against magic-wielding classes.

v.04:
-Added Chapter 8, 9, and 10, which completes the “Lyn Mode” of the hack
-Added a Halberdier class. It’s enemy only at the moment, and will probably be nerfed in the future.
-Reworked a hell of a lot of things, to the point that previous versions of the hack are no longer functional
-Customized the title screen somewhat

v.05:
-Added Chapter 11, 12, 13, and 14, as well as the first “Respite” chapter.
-Added a Dragon class
-Changed animations for Pegasus Knights
-Added a Wyvern class (for wild wyverns)

v.06:
-Added Chapter 15, 16, and 16x
-Changed animations for Mages (specifically male ones)
-Changed animations (and names) for Nomads and Nmd. Troopers (though the Troopers’ name change is not currently visible)
-Changed animations for Strategist (also not yet visible)

v.06.1:
-I realized that Chapter 16x was horribly designed, so I made some major tweaks, to the point where it’s virtually a different chapter now. Should be significantly better, though.

v.06.2:
-Realized the newly made Ch16x didn’t have a victory condition. Fixed the glaring oversight.

v.06.3:
-Learned that loading units using functions that don’t include “If Player Unit, Join your party” can cause gamebreaking bugs on some emulators. Why this is, I have no idea. But I went through every script in the entire hack thus far and fixed every instance of this error that I could find. (Here’s hoping I didn’t miss some!)

v.06.4:
-I missed some.
-Actually I missed a lot. I have since fixed them.
-I also forgot to add a win condition to 16x again, somehow, so I fixed that too.
-“Sent to Merlinus”-esque messages updated to the hack’s merchant’s name. Probably missed some of these too.

v.07:
-Since every change I’ve made in this patch was to a pre-existing chapter, I’ll write them all for this patch’s notes a bit differently than normal.
-History Lesson: Brand new, added to explain how this world came to be the way it is. Also allows (recommended) setting of Casual mode.
-Prologue: Nothing major. Just a small change to how the enemy soldier dies after the map is completed.
-Chapter 1: Enemy cavalier no longer has a Lancereaver.
-Chapter 3: Player characters are forcefully moved out of the way of the enemies when they first arrive. Also, Lang starts already on the map, and an actual tutorial message appears to very clearly state the map’s objective when Oscar and Elaine are recruited. Finally, the armory’s stock has been reduced slightly.
-Chapter 4: Probably got the biggest change. Smaller map size, less enemies, less green units, a smaller turn count, and a new entry point that needs defending.
-Chapter 5: Some enemies throughout the map now have steal-able chest keys, so the thief doesn’t have to open every chest themselves.
-Chapter 7: All non-boss enemies made weaker so the regular player units can handle them. However, four brand new enemies were added which are way too strong for anyone but the general to handle, so his aid is still necessary.
Chapter 7x: No longer optional. Contrary to my initial intentions, this hack will not have Gaiden chapters. For this reason, this chapter is now Chapter 8. Also, a few shaman have been replaced with other shaman, and a few more were replaced by female shaman, just to break up the monotony of having only one type of enemy on the map.
Chapter 8: Now called chapter 9. The characters state that they need to wait and hope a miracle happens. The miracle happens a few turns sooner, too. However, a second damaged wall has been added to the southern room, which makes things a bit tougher.
Chapter 9: This chapter was trash, and has been thrown away entirely.
Chapter 10: I really liked Chapter 9’s concept of starting in a cave and not knowing what to expect, so I reused it here instead of getting rid of it. The enemies (aside from the royal guard and those in the boss’s room) have been made a little weaker, and don’t all have 1-2 range weapons.
Chapter 11: Edrick’s bases have been significantly improved. They’re still not great, but they’re at least strong enough that he can solo a generic level 1 bandit. (He also got a tiny buff to his speed growth.)
Chapter 16: Slightly increased the turn limit. Hard nerfed the stupidly OP boss.
Chapter 16x: Now called Chapter 17. The cells don’t open during the chapter. Since there’s less green units, the player has to do more of the work themselves. Oscar and Elaine now rejoin at the end of the chapter, this time with their levels working properly.

v.08:
-Added Chapters 18 & 19 (my best work yet, IMO), as well as a new Respite chapter.
-Respite chapters are now being treated as mandatory, challenge free Gaiden chapters. (Basically, this just means the two Respite chapters are now numbered as 14x and 19x.)
-Horace and Brian’s bases got nerfed due to them being too OP for my liking. For similar reasons, Nicholas’s growths were also nerfed. (Nicholas is probably still OP, but not as much)
-Edrick now has a higher Sword rank at base.

v.08.1: All changes made apply to Chapter 19
-Buffed the “Luck” stats of all generic green units on the map, but nerfed the rest of their stats.
-The green paladins now use Silver Axes as opposed to Silver Swords and Silver Lances.
-All three generals’ stats have been buffed.
-General Dillon no longer has a bow, but has had a change made to his AI so that won’t be an issue.
-General Ramsey has had his weapons replaced by a Spear.
-General Victor’s now has an Elixir, and his AI has been changed.
-General Rodin and his troops will show up automatically if the other three aren’t defeated quick enough. This is not an instant game over, but will make the chapter significantly more difficult.
-General Rodin’s AI has also been changed, but this is to make him easier to handle, as opposed to more difficult. (He won’t stand still no matter how hard I try to make him, so this was the best I could get.)
-The chapter spells out the clear condition (defeat the first three generals and talk to Willow) from the start, and specifies that beating Rodin is not required.
-An enemy Priest has been added with Physic to make Viktor that much harder to defeat.

v.09:
-Added Chapters 20 and 21
-Nerfed Fimbulvetr and Frost Breath (but also lowered Fimbulvetr’s weapon rank requirement)
-Dropped Elaine’s base Anima rank
-Nerfed Oscar and Elaine’s stats (though not enough to stop them from being powerful)
-Lang now gives a Silver Axe instead of a Brave Axe
-Weapon rank requirements for Silver and Brave Axes swapped (B for Silver, A for Brave)
-Added a new physical weapon of each type that deal magic damage (like a tome, not a Light Brand) as well as bonus damage against dragons.
-Every playable character now has a palette set for once they promote!
-Added an event battle at the end of Chapter 10

v.10:
-Added Chapters 22 and 23
-I don’t THINK I’ve made any other changes, but it’s been such a long time that I may have outright forgotten about some less major ones.

v.10.1:
-Fixed Brian, Alex, and Nicole having bugged animations when promoted. (Their slots used to be characters with unique promoted animations, which I never remembered to turn off until now.)

v.11:
-Added Chapter 23x, a new Respite chapter
-Fixed Rouges not being able to steal
-Buffed Piers and Nicholas
-Renamed Pirates to Sailors
-Earth Seal renamed to Divine Seal
-Replaced Victor’s Hero Crest in Chapter 23 with a Divine Seal
-Since Sailors aren’t inherently outlaws, they now promote using Hero Crests
-Gave a name to the leader of the wyvern flock. (He won’t be playable in this hack, but I figured he deserves a name.)

v.11.1:
-Guiding Rings can now promote Priests. Divine Seals can now promote Priests and Soldiers. I’m not sure how I never made these fixes before, but they have finally been made.

v.11.2:
-Flame Sword, Fire Lance, Blazing Axe, and Magic Bow now calculate damage like a Light Brand instead of like a tome.

v.12:
-Added Chapter 24, 25A, 25B, and 25C. (These are not alternate routes, BTW. It’s all one battle that’s too important to make just one chapter.)
-Renamed the item Eclipse gets in Chapter 21
-Rebalanced the stats of some player and enemy units (I honestly forget which ones)
-Solaris’s animations finally display ingame. They were here the whole time, but she never fought anything before.

v.13:
-Added Chapter 25x
-Made Aldrich a playable character
-Significantly buffed Brenda and Carrie’s base stats
-Made unique animations for Helena so she’s not a recolored male Priest/Bishop anymore
-Raised HP cap of promoted classes from 60 to 80
-Edrick and Valeria can finally promote!

v.14:
-Added Chapter 26 and 27
-Buffed a bunch of characters (admittedly, I forget who exactly, but Valeria was among them)
-Raised Def and Res caps for dragons
-New weapon for dragons to use!

v.14.1:
-Fixed certain generic units in Chapters 4, 7, 11, 12, 13, and 20 having the stats of a lategame prepromote

v.15:
-Added Chapter 28
-Fixed a custom weapon only having 5 durability (Or maybe it was 3? I don’t remember, but it’s fixed now, so it doesn’t matter.)
-…I think I buffed some characters, but I honestly don’t remember that either.

v.16:
-Added Chapters 29 and 30
-Added two new Prf weapons
-Renamed the S-rank weapons to better fit this world
-Hyped self up for v1.0 coming next

v1.0:
-Added the four Finale chapters
-Three previously shown characters made playable
-Rebalanced a few things (mostly units, also I forget exactly what changes I made)
-FINISHED THE HACK!

v1.1:
-Fixed some (mostly minor) errors in Ch19x
-Tried to fix a major bug in Ch23 that’s been causing softlocks
-Failed to fix said bug, and instead added a temporary fix and a plea for more info

v1.1.1:
-Fixed a minor portrait-related issue in Chapter 5
-Found that the v1.1 doesn’t actually work, so hopefully this one does

Screenshots:

Note: All screenshots shown here are from the Prologue and first three chapters.
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Credits:

Halberdier animations: TBA, Spud, MeatofJustice, Rexacuse
Savant animations: Nuramon
Edrick Duelist animations: Alusq, Maiser6
Female Wyvern Rider animations: Flasuban, eCut
Wild Wyvern animations: Mercenary Lord, FaerieFruit
Armored Peg. Knight animations: Lisandra_Brave, Inkling, Genocike
Hatless Mage animations: GabrielKnight, Pikmin1211
Non-Religious Valkyrie animations: DerTheVaporeon, Isaac, Pikmin1211
Non-Sacaean Nomad animations: Pikmin1211, Maiser6, eCut
Male Troubadour animations: Pikmin1211, GabrielKnight, Maiser6, Lisandra_Brave, TBA
Solaris animations: MrKnight, DerTheVaporeon
Ponytail Valkyrie animations: seergiioo
Tent Class Card: LaurentLacroix
Female Berserker animations: eCut, Skitty
Champion animations: Mycahel, Nuramon, The_Big_Dededester
Scientist animations: Eldritch Abomination
Heir (staff): Blazer
Noble (battle anims): Aruku, Kenpuhu, Nuramon (Also Spud made magic anims that I didn’t use but are still cool)
Noble (map anims): Pikmin1211, DerTheVaporeon

25 Likes

Welcome to the community!

People like screenshots! If you can share a handful of them in the original post your hack’s going to get more clicks. Also if you could do a little write up where you share any defining features of your hack like new classes, skills, route splits, etc. Most people aren’t willing to go in almost completely blind so you want to give your potential players as much info as possible.

Happy hacking!

2 Likes

Thanks! I’ll get on that as soon as I get back to my computer.

Interesting concept so far! I like your design for the main female lead. It’s not often we get stern, militaristic-looking ladies in projects. Usually they’re cuties with big eyes and big hearts, or guys of certain sorts. I hope you can pull off the tough gal character archetype and execute it well.

Don’t forget, if you want good placeholder mugs, there are tons of mugs in the Portrait Repo, where you can make a full cast of good-looking characters, until maybe a year or so down the road, where you might get artists who love the project enough to sprite custom non-repo characters.

Up to you!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19atQfBOxjckaeI1uvBhhYFdXh7eB_iQg

The Community OC’s folder has the customized mugs you’ll want. Check all the folders and you might find some real gems that fit to your liking.

2 Likes

Thanks! It was pretty hard getting a good design made for Valeria, since she was assembled from recolored parts of vanilla GBA portraits (namely Brunnya, Echidna, and Syrene).

Also, thanks for linking me to the Portrait Repo! I’ve never heard of it before, and I’m sure it’s going to be a huge help for future portrait designing!

1 Like

The Portrait Repo is sort of old, but I only started overhauling and totally reorganizing it two weeks ago. It’s also part of the official Graphics Repo, which has all SORTS of stuff. Just navigate to the upper level folders in that same google drive!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jiiTpNXgAlr4lZBh8d-nJFdO-Jus5VXV

(The Tools folder is more than likely severely outdated, it’s just there as a backup)

1 Like

Thanks!

Quick question: Are the animations in the “Battle Animations” folder open for anyone to use? From my understanding they are, but I want to be sure before using them so I don’t accidentally steal someone’s work.

1 Like

Anything in the repo is free to use. Just include credit for the creators of any resources you use in your topic’s Credits section.

Awesome!

First of all, welcome to the community!

Now, after finishing playing the hack, I’m going to give my opinion.

About the story:

I find it quite interesting, and I hope it develops on the same way. I’ve nothing bad to say.

About the map design & balance:

I have nothing to say about the map design. Doesn’t happen the same with the balance, as I feel the hack quite easy on the first 3 chapters, but unfair on the last one.

Graphics complaint:

Just an issue with Dianne’s palette, as I think it is too dark. Also, Valerias map sprite is a F Myrmidon, but when you place the cursor on here she becomes lyn.

This is everything I supose… sorry if it doesn’t help too much.

Thanks for trying the hack! And thanks for the feedback too, it actually helps a decent bit!

I gave buffs to generic soldiers and fighters so they have the same base stat totals and growth totals as mercenaries, but I didn’t do that until AFTER designing Chapter 3. Thanks for pointing out how difficult it is. I’ll nerf the enemies in the next update. Or I’ll buff Lang’s group so they can do more of the work. Or both. (Also, the prologue and the first two chapters are supposed to be easy, to get a player somewhat eased in before throwing them into the thick of things.)

I’m trying to go for more realistic hair colors (outside Elaine, who’s not fully human, as will be revealed next chapter), so I wanted some darker hair colors. That said, I agree I may have made hers too dark, so I’ll look into fixing that. Also, thanks for pointing out the thing with Valeria’s sprites. She’s an edited Lord class, so while I tried to give her a Swordmaster’s animations, I guess they didn’t all stick.

(Also, quick question: How do I get things to show up in a clickable drop-down menu like you had? I want to do that with the screenshots, but I have no idea how.)

2 Likes

I forgot to say that the first 3 chapters have too weak enemies, and you can use chapter 2 as an endless level-up farm. About the drop-down menus, you just have to click on the “toothed wheel” and select “hide details”

1 Like

Thanks!

Also, Chapter 2 isn’t an infinite level farm. One new enemy spawns every turn for 20 turns. There’s a lot of enemies, but they aren’t infinite.

I suppose I get tired of killing enemies, but you can easily get Valeria to level 8-9. So the fact is the same.

Ah. I guess I failed to account for a difference in playstyles. When playtesting, I always tried to spread the xp around equally. (I’m also not really all that good at Fire Emblem, despite loving it to death, so that probably doesn’t help either.)

Now I have to play the next 2 chapters!

I’d recommend replaying the original chapters as well. With how the classes have been buffed, I had to alter the bases of the player’s characters. The ones from your original save might be drastically under- or over-powered.

Ok… I’ll have it in mind

v.06 is now released, bringing the most recent chapter up to 16x!

Also, I’m testing to see if writing a Reply to my own post makes this show up again on the main FE Universe page. I really hope it does, because it’s been kinda lonely being the only person ever looking at this thread and appreciating my work.

Update: It worked. Hopefully I will receive some of the validation I crave.

1 Like

It has came to my attention (from my own playtesting) that Chapter 16x was kind of hot garbage. So I’ve made a bunch of major tweaks to make it actually bearable.

I don’t know how I thought it was even remotely well-designed beforehand.